Symbols of the four Evangelists

The misappropriation of the four faces of the cherubim, originally designed to shadow forth the incarnate Deity, to the four evangelists, with whom these emblematic representations are still, as anciently, associated in architectural decorations and heraldic bearings, appear to have originated, among the early Christians, in the reverence with which they regarded the four gospels. JARLZBERG (Vol. i., p. 385.) explains why the lion is assigned to St. Mark, and desires to know the reasons assigned for the three other Evangelists' emblems. "Aquila", says Aringhi, "dignissimum ilium ac lynceum in…